Chefornak’s error ridden vote count

While we’re all waiting for the Division of Elections to tally the vote, a reader brought to my attention what appeared to be a very odd vote tally, which we now know is a mistake, from the village of Chefornak. Chefornak, with a population of about 400, is about 100 miles southwest of Bethel and 490 miles southwest of Anchorage. The error-ridden vote count from the village has made at least one election-watcher nervous, and will now likely make many others nervous as well.

According to precinct results from the Division of Elections, results which are now reportedly in error said DOE head Gail Fenumiai, the village bucked all the statewide trends and the 199 people who voted in the village on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly for third-party candidates. The village calculated the votes incorrectly, and new totals coming from the DOE tonight will have the correct vote count, Fenumiai said. However, since last Wednesday ,the public, if they were curious enough to look, would have seen that in Chefornak, Independent Senate candidate Ted Gianoutsosk received 174 votes. Statewide, he only got 1.99 percent of the total vote. Dan Sullivan and Mark Begich combined received only 14 votes in Chefornak. In the governor’s race, the Alaska Constitution Party did pretty well in Chefornak. The Myers/Rensel ticket got 129 votes from Chefornak. Statewide, they received 2.47 percent of the vote tabulated so far. Combined, Parnell and Walker got 32 votes. Here’s a screen grab of the DOE’s results from the village:

Chefornak has a population of 400 men, women, and children. And they had 199 people who voted? I’m wondering how many registered voters they have in Chefornak? And is the percentage of actual votes in line with the rest of the state voter turnout?

This is very troubling and brings the entire vote reporting system into question. The error here was significant and abundantly clear. Still it took about a week to be found. What if there are multipe smaller counts wrong? No statement from Treadwell either. The only thing this fake has to do is run elections and he’s absent, again.

I don’t think this is a big deal. However, it does cause pause and concern. Now that I’m thinking about it, this could be a huge problem. What’s the explanation for the mistake and what can the division say to give us confidence that the other numbers are correctly reported. I hope people are watching the count closely.

I am amused and saddened about the bush vote. Folks want to vote in a language they understand, and the State spends enormous sums to help few enjoy the right to vote and be heard. This is a gateway to democracy, and something that should be considered sacred.

On the other hand it seems as if certain votes from the bush are outright fraud. Not only is this illegal,
its shameful on every level. I would encourage the elders to chastise the folks that abuse this national
duty, a fundamental mandate for a free society. Accurate voting reflects the cumulative mandates by all citizens, if they are skewed by a nefarious few we all lose the battle for freedom.

This story is somewhat alraming and makes you wonder how such a mistake is possible. Aren’t there systems in place to catch such errors and if there are why didn’t it get caughjt?
We all know that Mead Treadwell abdicated his constitutional responsibility of running elections. Thank goodness he did; otherwise, it would be even more of a mess.